Mozart's Berlin journey

One of the longest adulthood journeys of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a visit, beginning in Spring 1789, to a series of cities lying northward of his adopted home in Vienna: Prague, Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin.

The journey took place during a difficult period of Mozart's career when he was no longer earning much money from concerts, and his income from the composition of operas had not made up the difference. He was borrowing money, for example from his friend Michael Puchberg, and the financial situation was very worrisome.

Mozart's passage to Berlin was free of charge: he accompanied his aristocratic patron and fellow Mason Prince Karl Lichnowsky, who had his own reasons for visiting Berlin and had offered Mozart a ride.

Mozart and Lichnowsky departed Vienna on the morning of 8 April 1789. They reached Prague on 10 April. In a letter written that day to Constanze, Mozart reported the good news that oboist Friedrich Ramm, traveling from Berlin, told him that Friedrich Wilhelm II, King of Prussia, was eagerly awaiting him in Potsdam. The King was a great potential source of concert income and commissions for new works. Mozart also reported to Constanze that he had worked out an agreement with Domenico Guardasoni, the director of the Italian opera in Prague, for a new opera for a fee of 250 ducats (ca. 1,000 florins).

They arrived in Dresden on 12 April, and lodged at the "Hôtel de Pologne". This hotel was the scene of a concert performed the next day; according to Deutsch, "Mozart performed quartets with the organist Anton Teyber and the cellist Anton Kraft; they also played the String trio, K. 563." At the same concert, Mozart accompanied his friend Josepha Duschek who also travelled to Dresden from her home in Prague. Duschek sang arias from The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. In a letter to his wife, Mozart writes that they arranged a quartet at the hotel, which they performed in the chapel. "Wir hatten bei uns a l'hotel de Boulogne ein quartett arrangirt. - wir machten es in der Kappelle mit Antoine Tayber..."

...
Wikipedia